Three Directions of Cure

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Three Directions of Cure.

Another question that arises is: How can we demonstrate that we have cured and how may we know that our remedy is acting curatively? This leads us to consider the three directions of cure.

We find that in order to produce a permanent cure, symptoms must disappear from above downward, from within outward, and in the reverse order of their coming.

All homoeopaths who understand the art know that in order for the cure to be permanent, the symptoms must go away in these directions. It is these directions, that we must keep in mind when we treat an eruption on the skin and see that the symptoms do not leave the skin and go to the brain, for if such a course is taken we know a mistake has been made, and if something is not done to make the symptoms take a proper course and go from the brain (center) to the skin (circumference) we are going to have a death certificate to fill out. Then when we treat a case of endocarditis, and after the administration of the remedy we observe a rheumatic swelling of the knee or ankle, and the patient will tell you, “This is the same sickness I had when Dr. So-and-So treated me for rheumatism before this heart trouble came on,” you can be sure when this happens that you will make a cure, for the direction the symptoms have taken is according to the law, the symptoms have left the internals and have gone to the external parts, and if we leave the prescription alone, a cure will result.

In Section 3 we have Hahnemann’s statement of the three precautions, or those which I have called the “Trinity.” He must perceive what is curable in disease; what is curative in medicine; and the application of the last to the first. And I can do no better than to quote Section three of the Organon: “The physician should distinctly understand the following conditions: What is curable in diseases in general, and in each individual case in particular; that is, the recognition of disease (indicato). He should clearly comprehend what is curative in drugs in general and in each drug in particular; that is, he should possess a perfect knowledge of medicinal powers. He should be governed by distinct reasons in order to insure recovery by adapting what is curative in medicines to what he has recognized as undoubtedly morbid in a patient, that is to say, he should adapt it so that a case is met by a remedy well matched with regard to its kind of action (selection of the remedy indicatum), its necessary preparation and quantity, and the proper time of its repetition. Finally, when the physician knows in each case the obstacles in the way of recovery, and how to remove them, he is prepared to act thoroughly, and to the purpose, as a true master of the art of healing.”

Here Dr. Dudgeon’s translation uses the word “perceive,” which means understand. We may see a thing and not comprehend it; if we perceive a thing we must understand it. Here it is that our pathology and diagnosis will help us. We know when we perceive structural changes in tissues which have resulted in organic destruction that the remedy will not replace tissue so destroyed. In these cases the only thing we can do is to palliate the symptoms; but how much more gently and surely we can do this with our remedy than can be done by opiates, etc. If there is any one thing that should convert a family to Homoeopathy it is to see the agonies of a relative or fried relieved so they will still retain their mental faculties until the last. Who of us that have observed Arsenicum remove the fear of death and the mental agonies of the last hours that has not raised a silent prayer to our Maker for intrusting us with such a blessing for suffering humanity.

We must understand what is curative in medicine. How are we going to do this? In Section 21 we find: “It is possible only to recognize the power of drugs to produce distinct changes in the state of feeling of the human body, particularly the healthy human body, and to excite numerous definite morbid symptoms in and about the same, and it follows that if drugs act as curative remedies, they exercise this curative power only by virtue of their faculty of altering bodily feelings through the production of peculiar symptoms. Consequently those morbid disturbances, called forth by drugs in the healthy body, must be accepted as the only possible revelation of their inherent curative power.”

In this age of isopathy and serum therapy many are being led away by these will-o-the-wisps of allopathic teaching. One day we see a new serum or new bacterin or new vaccine; the next day someone comes along with something to remove the dangerous effects produced by their administration. These will go the way of all previous specifics and cure-alls advanced by the old school on experimental laboratory findings. Why is it their remedies come and go with almost the rapidity of a June frost? Simply because they are not based on a law. Where can we find anything in medicine that has had the lasting powers of a the remedies proven by Hahnemann more than a century ago? They are still being used for the same symptoms and with the same success as when first given the profession. Let the old school perceive what is curative in their medicine according to the methods of Hahnemann instead of laboratory experiments, and they will have something lasting and of value.

The application of the remedy to the symptoms will be taken up fully under the repertory analysis of the individualized symptom picture, later in the paper.